The use of ornamental lighting for holiday decorating is well known. Ornamental lighting, especially with "mini-lights", is also useful in marketing displays and for creating special effects in commercial establishments. Strings of decorative lights comprising, for example, twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred individual sockets are typically wired together in either series or parallel circuits with strands of insulated, small-diameter wire to which a plug or plugs are attached at one or both ends to facilitate connection with an electrical energy source or another strand of lights. Clear or colored bulbs are inserted into the sockets to provide the desired lighting effect.
The sockets utilized with such light strings sometimes employ a metal or plastic clip for use in attaching the individual sockets to an elongated support member such as a Christmas tree limb, or the like. Problems have been encountered, however, where the desired decorative lighting scheme requires the attachment of decorative light strings to a substantially planar support surface. Those of ordinary skill in the art have previously sought to overcome this problem by adapting decorative light holders to be maintained on a substantially planar underlying support surface by screw-type fasteners, nails, or the like. One such light holder is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,310. The holder disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,310 comprises a base portion and a substantially cylindrical wall having two oppositely disposed horizontal slots. A hole through the base is adapted to receive a screw for securing the holder to a window molding or the facia or eaves of a house. The slots are designed to accommodate the wires extending in either direction from the base of a light socket, and the inside surface of the cylindrical wall is said to taper inwardly at its open end to grip a decorative light socket.
Several disadvantages are experienced through use of a decorative light holder as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,310. First, the necessity for using a screw fastener to attach the decorative holder to an underlying support surface is both difficult and time consuming, and leaves a hole in the support surface once the screw is removed. Second, screws are undesirable for use in attaching decorative lights to support surfaces made of glass. Third, the cylindrical wall sections disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,310 require a substantially thick wall in order to provide the required support and maintain their dimensional stability during prolonged use. Fourth, a decorative light holder having an inside wall tapered as required by U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,310 permits excessive wobble when utilized with conventional, commercially available light sockets as depicted in FIG. 4 herein. Fifth, the decorative light holder as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,310 is only useful for supporting a decorative light bulb in a direction perpendicular to the underlying support surface.
A decorative light holder is therefore needed that is adapted to support and maintain an individual socket of a decorative light string on a substantially planar support surface without permanently damaging or defacing the support surface. A decorative light holder is needed that can be quickly and conveniently applied to a glass or plastic support surface and thereafter removed for subsequent reuse. A decorative light holder is needed that can provide adequate lateral support for a decorative bulb socket after prolonged use, without the need for substantially thick sidewalls. A decorative light holder is also needed that is adapted to support a decorative light bulb and socket assembly in a direction either parallel or perpendicular to the underlying support surface as desired by the user. Such a decorative light holder is provided herein.